Two weeks in...

School started two weeks ago.

First day of 2nd grade:

First day of 6th grade (middle school!):

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Two weeks in, we are slowly getting into a new routine. Bearhug and Cuddlebug seem to be adjusting well to middle school overall. It's a challenge with so much being new - the school itself, lockers, separate teachers for each subject, electives, etc. and it's a lot to keep track of, but I'm really proud of how well they're doing.

We requested that they be in the same classes as much as possible, and they ended up being scheduled for all the same classes, which is great at least for this year. They've been in separate classes before but have been together for the last two school years and they work well together. They have enough changes going on this year without adding being separated for much of the day on top of everything else. And let's be honest, it also helps us to keep track of homework assignments, projects, etc. when they have the same teachers :).

Both of the boys decided to join the orchestra at school. They each chose to play the cello. I'm really excited for them and hope they enjoy it. Both dh and I played music growing up and hope it will be a good experience for them. They get to start with instruments tomorrow :).


Bitty is doing well so far at school, and he's been great about getting up and ready in the morning. He still complains about going to school every day though :(. His teacher said he is doing well. She said she's been pacing his academic work to parallel the general ed class and he's keeping up just fine so that is good. However, during the time that he actually *goes* to the general ed class, there are a couple of areas where he's struggling and it sounds like it's more in terms of the approach being different. So we may need to adjust his IEP. Already. We're going to talk about it this week. Hopefully whatever changes we make will help him feel better about school...

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Here is some of what the boys brought home their first week of school:

Bitty's class worked on how to draw cats (which I'm sure he LOVED!). He adores cats. And as you may recall, one of his first drawings from a couple of years ago was of a cat. :)

Bearhug and Cuddlebug were each asked to fill out a "getting to know you" questionnaire. Here's an excerpt from each.

Cuddlebug:
#4 made me laugh as he clearly demonstrates his point, and his answer to #15 is just so sweet! :)

Bearhug:
love how he states the obvious in #4, and his reply to #7 is just so... him :)

The questionnaire was two pages long and the last question from the teacher was "do you have any questions for me?" so this was Bearhug's response (LOL):

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The graduates

Cue Alice Cooper, because as of a couple of weeks ago, it's official... school's out.

Two of my babies have graduated from 5th grade, bringing their elementary school days to a close.

I can't believe they are growing up so fast, but I am SO proud of them!





They each earned awards for being on the A/B honor roll all year, and all through elementary school. Awesome job, guys!!

On the last day of school, I took the day off so we could go to their 5th grade graduation, and later that day was Bitty's end-of-year class party.



His class is fairly small (it's a self-contained ASD class) so the teacher let each of the kids get up to read a poem that they've been working on.

Here is Bitty's poem, I love it!

And the drawing (of himself) that he did with it:



After we got home that day, Bitty celebrated the beginning of summer with - what else - Angry Birds :).



He's been getting more creative and building "structures" for the pigs. We put them on a blanket so it wouldn't be so loud when the birds knocked the structures down (dh was taking a nap).



"Level complete!"

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In honor of Independence Day

Thought I'd share some more of the boys' answers to their school worksheets, this time on the topic of heroes and soldiers. It seems appropriate for July 4 :).

I have to say, I'm proud of my boys :).

(from Cuddlebug. I realized after I scanned it that the last word was written on the back. It should say "another." at the end.)

(from Bearhug)

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Click, Clack, Moo...

One of Bitty's favorite books is "Click, Clack, Moo... Cows that Type." It's a really cute book, in which the cows and ducks exchange a series of typewritten notes with Farmer Brown.

I came home from work one day to find these (written with his pink marker, of course):




Amazing handwriting! Especially considering he could barely write his own name when he started Kindergarten a year ago. Check out his cutting skills too, he did that all by himself! I guess all that practice is paying off :).

Later, Bitty wanted to try typing the notes so I let him:



He quickly got tired of typing and wanted me to type for him while he showed me which notes he wanted. Of course we had to print out all of the typewritten notes.

Some of them he put into his journal:





Others, he hung up on the wall:



We also found a few taped to the various "barn" doors around the house :).

It's really been fun seeing his "pretend play" skills branching out into new areas (beyond trains). Granted it is technically more imitation than original pretend scenarios, but it's still a big step :). I've also noticed that lately, although he still gets a little, umm, obsessive about his favorites, he is branching out to have more than one "favorite" at a time. That's huge!

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Civil War, Pokemon, and ice cream

Bet you're wondering how those three things can possibly be related, huh? Only at our house, I suppose.

The boys started their summer schoolwork this past week (dh always does his own version of homeschooling over the summer). Cuddlebug and Bearhug are learning about the Civil War, while Bitty is working on writing, basic math, and other skills in preparation for 1st grade.

I love reading the boys' answers to the questions on their worksheets :). One that made me laugh was this answer to a question about arguments:


I guess they have agreed to disagree on which is the better Pokemon (Reshiram and Zekrom are pictured above)

Then there was this one from Bearhug, which I really liked :).



When I told him I liked what he wrote, he said, "what else would we fight for? We're not gonna fight for ice cream!" Huh? LOL.

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Blog Gems: Spray!

Jen over at The King and Eye has a great idea called Blog Gems in which bloggers can link up to share posts from our archives.

The current topic is to share a "creative" post. So here's one from March 2009 in which I shared one of Bearhug's stories, "Spray." It's a great display of his drawing as well as his sense of humor :).

Bearhug's description of the story: "This story is about a boy. And he sprays."

Click here to read more.




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